Festive Satire: Julian's Misopogon and the New ... - Julian Emperor

Who needs the Golden Age? Ours is bejewelled-but Neronian.99 MAUD W. GLEASONIn 306 the Council of Elvira condemned those who took such liberties with churches: 'Hiqui inventi fuerint libellos famosos in ecclesia ponere, anathematizantur'.~~~ Basil ofCaesarea had to deal with the case of a nun whose acquaintance with an unscrupulous manhad ruined her reputation. 'He came to such a pitch of impiety and insolence', she wrote,'that he filled the whole city with slanders against me, and pilloried me with a publicplacard that was affixed to the doors of the church'.'"' A century later, when Gothic troopsbilleted in Edessa maltreated the citizens, 'those who were ill-disposed among theEdessenes dared to do something unseemly; for they wrote down on sheets of paper(xap-rqS) complaints against the Magister Militum, and fastened them up secretly in thecustomary places of the city'.'"" (The Magister responded by packing up his troops andleaving town.) Such practices continued in Byzantine times. John of Ephesus preserves theamusing story of how a monument under construction by Justin I1 unexpectedly acquiredan unflattering inscription. '"3Imperial edicts, criticizing the behaviour of individuals or entire populations, couldprovide an officially posted counterpart to the graffiti of private parties. For example,Marcus Aurelius did not massacre the supporters of Cassius, 'and even went so far as topardon the citizens of Antioch, who had said many things in support of Cassius and inopposition to himself. But he did abolish their games and public meetings, includinggatherings of every kind, and issued a very severe edict against the peopleI suggest that Julian's posting of the Misopogon belongs to a traditional pattern ofimperial public behaviour: the promulgation of what might be called 'edicts of chastisement'.Fronto considered it the emperor's duty to write such things. Emperors ought to'repress by their edicts the faults of provincials, give praise to good actions, quell theseditious and terrify the fierce ones. All these are assuredly things to be achieved by wordsand letters'.'"~ Edicts were technically expressions of the emperor's views, and unlike libelliand subscriptiones were not written as replies to an initiative from below. From the time ofConstantine imperial letters came to have the force of edicts and were often posted up(proposita) in the same way.lo6 Edicts were initially published by posting them up at theemperor's current place of residence.107 The Misopogon, according to ma la la^,^^^ was putup 'outside the palace, on the so-called Tetrapylon of the Elephants near the royal street'that served as the propylaea of the palace.1~9 It is pointless to ask whether those whocraned their necks around the Tetrapylon of the Elephants thought they were reading anedict or an imperial letter. By this time the generic distinction had blurred. Any attempt todecide the question on the basis of formal considerations will tend toward the conclusionthat the Misopogon is a hybrid.lzo Though posted like an edict, it does not begin with Myaior the equivalent, it is written in the first and not in the third person, and it ends with a99 Sidonius Apollinaris, Ep. v. 8. 2. l0q Lib., Or. XI. 205. It is not quite accurate to say,Canon 52. Compare the famosa epistula against with Downey (Antioch, 394 n. 8g), 'The Tetrapylon ofMaxentius that got a Carthaginian deacon into trouble the Elephants is not mentioned elsewhere and it is not(Optatus I. 17).clear from this passage whether or not it stood at theBasil, ktter 289.crossing of the four main streets of the island'. SurelyW. Wright, The Chronicle of roshua the Stylite Lib., Or. XI. 204 describes a monument at this intersec-(1882, repr. 1968), 73. Contrast the discreet 'suggestion tion: 'From four arches which are joined to each otherbox' for informers' complaints set up outside his palace in the shape of a rectangle, four pairs of stoas proceed asby the governor Alexander (ch. 29).from an omphalos'.1.3 HE III. 24. Even in classical times non-judicial edicts varied in'04 HA. Marcus xxv. style and content. A recent treatment of the subject,~sAdM. Antoninum de eloquerztia 2. 7, quoted in emphasizes the influence of rhetoric: M. Benner, TheMillar, op. cit. (n. 7), 203.Emperor says: Studies in the Rhetorical style in Edicts'06 Millar, 319-21 ; 592; 598. of the Early Empire, Studia Graeca et Latina1.7 Millar, 254, with references. Gothoburgensia 33 (1975), 190-1.'"8 328. 3-4.